What Is Real-Time Accounting (and Why Should You Care)?

Home → Accounting → What Is Real-Time Accounting (and Why Should You Care)?

What Is Real-Time Accounting (and Why Should You Care)?

Real-time accounting is when your books are caught up to the present and you know exactly where you stand with your account balances, revenue, and profit. It’s truly doing your accounting in real time.

The opposite of real-time accounting is getting your books done once a year (or worse, being years behind). When you wait to do your books once a year, say at tax time, you lose the power of being able to monetize opportunities in real time. Some examples are realizing your prices are too low and your profit margins need adjustment, seeing what’s selling well and restocking sooner than later, or discovering a worker is not productive based on your pay rates and prices.

Today’s cloud accounting systems and bank feeds allow you the potential for real-time accounting, where the benefits include: